


if you don’t wanna talk about it

by dancinbutterfly, suzukiblu



Series: mad elephants [11]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alpha Soldier: 76 | Jack Morrison, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Alternate Universe, Blackwatch Reaper | Gabriel Reyes, Emotional Hurt, Family Issues, Fantasy Gender Roles, M/M, Omega Reaper | Gabriel Reyes, Parenthood, Strike-Commander Soldier: 76 | Jack Morrison
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-03-26
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:27:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23335363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancinbutterfly/pseuds/dancinbutterfly, https://archiveofourown.org/users/suzukiblu/pseuds/suzukiblu
Summary: Jack wants to talk about something. Gabriel can tell. His A's never been all that subtle about that kind of thing.
Relationships: Reaper | Gabriel Reyes/Soldier: 76 | Jack Morrison
Series: mad elephants [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1114917
Comments: 17
Kudos: 207





	if you don’t wanna talk about it

**Author's Note:**

> Another one we wrote together; this one took us a while! Sometimes it’s hard to find time to write, alas, and it’s harder when it’s two people trying to find said time at the _same_ time, hah.

Jack wants to talk about something. Gabriel can tell. His A's never been all that subtle about that kind of thing.

They've been training together for the better part of the morning because no one else can keep up with them, and Gabriel's been waiting for Jack to figure out how to say whatever it is he wants to say. By the time they get to their cool-down routine, he still hasn't; it's all been about training or work or nothing important. He knows if it was bad Jack would've already found the way to say it, because that's how Jack is, but that doesn't mean he's not getting impatient waiting to hear it. 

"So what is it?" he says, eyeing the other in the weight room mirror, and Jack pauses guiltily in the middle of putting away their truly ridiculous amount of weights. Normally Gabriel would just be admiring the sight of his A all sweaty and worn-out but normally Jack wouldn't be hemming and hawing in his head. 

"It's . . . a little complicated," he says slowly, setting down the weight in his hands. "It's a few things." 

"A few?" Gabriel cocks an eyebrow. 

"Jesse got in a fight," Jack says. 

"He _what_?" Gabriel demands, whipping around to face him. "With who?!" 

"Couple of cadets," Jack says unhelpfully. 

" _Which_ couple of cadets?" Gabriel snaps. They're grown men and women. Jesse's seventeen. He's going to make them regret ever _hearing_ of Overwatch. 

"That's not really the important part. It was just some idiots stirring up trouble," Jack says, still more unhelpfully. Gabriel is already planning how to track those idiots down. "I already talked to the security officers about it." 

" _Security_ got involved?!" 

"Well he didn't come and tell me about it himself," Jack says dryly, coming over to him. "He broke one's wrist and the other's nose. Accidentally." 

Gabriel unclenches just a little. Yeah. That sounds like the boy who beat half their security force trying to escape. His boy.

Jack gives him a flat look. “Come on, Gabe.”

“What?

“Don’t be glad about this.”

“I’m not glad. Just . . . impressed.”

"Tell me the difference," Jack says, folding his arms. 

"There's a difference," Gabriel lies. This doesn't seem like something to delay telling him, though, so . . . "What else?" 

"I think he made a friend?" Jack offers, and Gabriel blinks in surprise. 

"What, really?" he says, genuinely bemused. "Who?" 

"Angela Ziegler," Jack says. "She's an A in the combat medic program—hand-picked for it, in fact. The fight was because the cadets were harassing her." 

“I know her.” 

He’d tried to steal her for Blackwatch when she’d first arrived at Gibraltar. She hadn’t been interested and honestly she was a little too pure for the war games his team played, believed a little too deeply in justice and mercy. Reminded him a little of Jack when he’d first arrived at the SEP. 

“At least he knows good people when he sees them.”

“We’re working on restraint so that he can continue to see those good people and not end up in the brig because I can get once written off as a mistake but him breaking cadet bones twice and the nepotism becomes impossible to ignore. And it’s definitely nepotism.”

“Which I appreciate.”

“Yeah, Omega, I did it for you.”

And the thing is, Jack’s being an ass but he did do it for Gabriel, at least a little, and both of them know it. Jesse won’t talk to Gabriel or look at him or be near him and he definitely won’t let Gabriel take care of him. Jack caring for him, even a little, administratively, is something. Jack tries. Gabriel loves that he tries even if everything else is absolutely shit. 

“So he made a friend,” Gabriel says. That’s a good thing, he thinks—a friend or two means Jesse’s that much likelier to stick around after his parole’s up. He hadn’t expected it, honestly, since Jesse’s younger than pretty much everybody else in the place and not exactly friendly, but Ziegler _is_ his age, so he probably should’ve thought of this to begin with. 

“Yes,” Jack says. “He defended her when Ana and I were talking to them after. Said she hadn’t hit anyone, which actually turned out to be true, according to the security footage. And I asked around a bit in the med bay and it seems like they’ve been eating lunch together pretty regularly.” 

“Huh.” Gabriel frowns. That _is_ a good thing, definitely, but still not something he expected. “Well . . . good, then.” 

“I’m going to give him some training,” Jack says carefully. “Cover the basics, so he doesn’t hurt anybody he doesn’t mean to be hurting again. We’re meeting up this afternoon, after my shift.” 

“Oh. Well. That’s good. Hands up.” That’s the only warning he gives Jack before he throws a punch. 

It’s all Jack needs because he’s Jack. He blocks it with a bit less efficiency than usual but the impact lands solidly. 

“Gabe.”

Jack blocks a kick and Gabriel doesn’t meet his eyes. “What?”

“You know we can’t let an SEP kid run around with no idea how to control his own strength. We’re lucky nobody got hurt worse,” Jack says. Gabriel punches him again; Jack deflects the blow with a low grunt. Gabriel wants to hit him a lot harder than that, but they’re not fucking _kids_ anymore, everything can’t always be a _fight_. 

Even if he really, really needs to fight something right now. 

“I know,” he says. “Fucking _hit_ me, will you.” 

“Gabe . . .” Jack says, with this fucking _indescribable_ look on his face, and Gabriel drops into a leg sweep. It seems like the thing to do. Jack jumps over it, because he’s _Jack_ , of course. 

“Did he ask or did you offer?” Gabriel says. 

“I offered,” Jack says. “Can’t believe he took me up on it, honestly.” 

“Mm,” Gabriel says, and leaps up to tackle him outright and knock him down. 

“He’s trying his best,” Jack says as he struggles for a hold that can reverse their positions. “I’ve got a chance to help so I need to give it to him.” 

“I know,” Gabriel grunts just in time for Jack to flip them. “I still fucking hate it.”

“I know, sweetheart,” Jack says gently, pinning his wrists, which really doesn’t make Gabriel hate any of this any less. 

“Fucking hell,” he says, kneeing Jack in the side and getting a grunt of pain out of the other. It’ll bruise, probably. Usually does when they fight, though the bruises never last that long. They’ve always shown up better on Jack, though, the pasty bastard. “Fucking _hell_!” 

“I know,” Jack says in that same awful gentle voice, leaning down over him. On principle, Gabriel headbutts him hard enough to make them both see stars. Jack should know better than to get that close, for one. “Jesus!” 

“What are you, new?” Gabriel says, locking his thighs against Jack’s sides and flipping them over so the other hits his back, _hard_. Gabriel puts a hand on Jack’s chest and barely restrains himself from punching him again. If they weren’t in a damn public weight room, this’d probably turn into “arguing about Jesse” sex, but they are, obviously, so it’s not going to, obviously, which pisses Gabriel off all over again. At least it’d be something else to think about besides the fact that their pup, again, is letting Jack in someplace he won’t let Gabriel. 

He wonders what would’ve happened if he’d been the one the security officers had sent for. Would Jesse have talked to him, then? Said anything to him at all? 

He’s pretty sure he knows the answer, so . . . 

“He’s doing better, really,” Jack says, breathing heavily underneath him and making no effort to get anywhere else; putting a hand around his wrist. Gabriel wants to punch him even more, or more like kiss him, but again: public fucking weight room, nevermind that it only smells like Jack in here. Nobody else is here right now, but that doesn’t mean anybody couldn’t walk in. “He’s just . . . getting used to us.” 

“Getting used to _you_ ,” Gabriel corrects brusquely, and Jack doesn’t try to argue with him. Good. He really _would_ punch him, if he did. 

Probably they should get off the floor before someone _does_ come in and think they’re trying to kill each other, because that probably wouldn’t end well, but Gabriel still wants to kill something, so . . . 

“He’s trying, Gabe,” Jack says in that wretched careful voice. “He’s just a rabbity kid. He’s too used to getting yelled at and not used enough to anyone giving a damn.” 

“I’m _so_ angry,” Gabriel says, because he could go on for a damn _year_ about how much he hates every single person who did this to Jesse, including them. “I can’t believe we fucked up this bad.” 

“He’s _okay_ , sweetheart,” Jack says, and Gabriel bares his teeth at him with an indignant hiss. 

“‘Okay’? Really?” he snaps. “He’s a gang member in an ankle monitor who doesn’t trust us as far as he could throw _Reinhardt_ and won’t even look at me. That is not okay.” 

“He’s not as angry,” Jack says. “He believes us. He’s telling us things.” 

“ _You_ , Jack. He’s telling _you_ things,” Gabriel bites off, gripping the front of the other’s shirt. He has no idea if Jesse’s angry or not, because Jesse won’t get anywhere _near_ him. 

“He’s telling me things,” Jack agrees quietly, squeezing his wrist. “It’s a start, isn’t it?” 

“My pup won’t even _look_ at me,” Gabriel hisses furiously. “Where’s the fucking _start_ , Jack?! Tell me!” 

“You matter to him the most!” Jack snaps back and Gabriel feels gut-punched. 

Jack takes the opportunity to get ahold of his other wrist. Gabriel hates this normally but right now he feels so unmoored that Jack’s grip is the only thing keeping him from spinning into the stratosphere. 

“He . . .”

“He’s terrified of what you’ll do, what you’ll say, what you think. He says it’s because he wants to be good enough for you but come on, sweetheart, it’s because you’re his mom.” 

“Who the hell said he wasn’t good enough?” Gabriel says, his shoulders and spine painfully tense. He’s not sure if he wants to believe any of that or not. It’s _hard_ to believe, either way. He still remembers Jesse telling him he wouldn’t _want_ him to be his mother, and no, he doesn’t think Jack would lie to him, but the kid was pretty damn convincing about it. 

“He did,” Jack says, squeezing his wrists. “He’s a kid who grew up in the system. Of course he thinks he’s not good enough.” 

“I really am going to make those foster families sorry,” Gabriel says. 

“Gabe . . .” Jack says. 

“You get to train him, I get to avenge him,” Gabriel says brusquely. It’s the least of what he wants to do. 

“Or you can calm the fuck down, make your dad’s baleadas the next time he comes to dinner, and do better at not spooking him.”

“I didn’t—”

“You did. He doesn’t remember us. Maybe he never will, and pressuring him is just going to scare him. We can’t keep scaring him.” 

“I can’t keep scaring him, you mean.”

“You’re a powerful presence, sir.”

Gabriel twists a wrist free just so he can slap Jack’s hand away. “Don’t fucking flirt with me now, Morrison.”

“Yes, sir.”

“What did I say?” Gabriel says, then exhales roughly and leans back, not sure what to say. He didn’t mean to scare Jesse. That’s just about the last thing he wants to do. He doesn’t know how to just _talk_ to the kid, apparently, which is just . . . stupid. He can’t figure out how to talk to his own pup? What kind of a mother is he, that that’s such a damn minefield? “Who knows if the kid even likes baleadas.” 

“Who doesn’t like your dad’s baleadas?” Jack says. 

“You’re assuming he’ll ever come to dinner again,” Gabriel says, which is really the more important concern here. 

“He will.”

“You cannot know that.”

“I’ll get him there. I got your six, Gabe. Always. And I don’t know if you've heard, but diplomacy? Kinda my thing.” 

“We need to use _diplomacy_ on our own fucking _kid_ ,” Gabriel mutters, pushing the other’s hands away and getting to his feet. He knows Jack has his six. Of course he does. He doesn’t know how a seventeen year-old is going to respond to any of this, though, no matter _how_ good Jack is at convincing people to do things they don’t want to do. 

And the fact that talking to him is something Jesse doesn’t want to do is still its own problem, either way. 

“He’s a teenager,” Jack says, propping himself up on his elbows. “Pretty sure that’s normal.” 

“Pretty sure it’s not, Jack,” Gabriel says, rubbing at his temples with a grimace. “I don’t even know what to say to him, or do for him, or . . . fuck, what they _did_ to him.” 

“Does it matter?” Jack says, pushing himself up into a sitting position. Gabriel paces past him, restless and frustrated. 

“Of course it _matters_!” he says, glaring down at him. 

“Does it matter right _now_ , though,” Jack says. 

“I feel like I can’t fucking move so . . . yeah. I think so?”

“Are you asking me?”

Gabriel doesn’t know. He wants to grab Jesse, drag him to their quarters, wrap him in everything soft they own until he smells right again and keep him in the nest he and Jack share until Gabriel was convinced he was safe again, the kind of safe he’d been as a pup in his mother’s home. But that’s not an option. Anything else feels insufficient and inadequate for his pup after everything.

"I can't do anything for him," he says. "Even if there _was_ something I could do, he wouldn't want it. It makes me feel like I'm failing him." 

"You're not," Jack says, but all Gabriel can think about is Jesse small and defenseless in foster home after foster home and just what kind of shit could've gone down, just who could've hurt him and how, and how completely their fault it all would've been. Was. _Is._ He can't forgive himself, and he can't expect Jesse to either. 

"I absolutely am," he says, because he has been for all this time. Jesse hasn't been safe for years, and that's on him. Them. 

Mostly him, it feels like. 

All this strength the SEP gave them, and they couldn't protect their own damn pup. 

“No. Shit happened. To us. To him. Fucked up, terrible, tragic shit, but we were at war, remember? No one else could do what we could do. And no one could have known what was going to happen.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“It’s not. Gabe, it’s not. It just feels that way.” 

And fuck Jack for being right. More people Gabriel knew from the war were dead than alive, more SEP prospects died during the program than made it into combat. But that doesn’t change the overwhelming feeling of failure that’s rooted itself in his chest and seeped out through every part of him towards his pup, screaming that he act. 

“If I’m not failing him, then what am I _doing_ for him?” Gabriel says, because even Jack can’t claim the answer to that is anything but “nothing”. They kept him out of prison, but Jack could’ve done that without him. Hell, he spent half the time Jack was arguing with the brass on the phone with Nicky, trying not to drown in panic. 

“You’re his mother,” Jack says. “You don’t have to do anything but care about him.” 

“That is the least true thing you have _ever_ said,” Gabriel says. If he’d cared enough, this never would’ve happened. 

“It’s alright that you can’t do anything else yet,” Jack says. “He’s safe. He’s getting fed, he has a roof over his head, he’s making friends who aren’t fucking criminals. He’s settling in, at least a little. No one else is going to touch him.” 

“That’s not good enough,” Gabriel says. It’ll never be good enough, it feels like. They can’t possibly make up for enough of this for it to be good enough. 

"It's going to have to be for now or it'll never be better."

Gabriel hisses, stalking back and forth across the floor in restless frustration. It’s _not_ good enough, and he doesn’t know how to handle it not being good enough without scaring Jesse off again. What’s he supposed to do, just sit there and listen to Jesse call him “Reyes” like it’s not just as much his own name, while he smells packless and stray, while he’s probably still thinking about how fast he can get out of here and back to Deadlock? 

How can that _possibly_ get better? 

“Gabe,” Jack says, getting to his feet. Gabriel stalks past him. “Sweetheart.” 

“What?” he hisses, hackles raising. 

“He really is trying, Gabe,” Jack says, reaching out to catch his wrist. He doesn’t pull him in, but pulls himself towards him instead. Gabriel bares his teeth at him. He wants to bite him, and _not_ in the fun way. “He’s a good kid, under it all. He just doesn’t know how to handle us yet.” 

“And teaching him how to throw a regulation punch is going to help?”

“I don’t think it can hurt. A little structured play never hurt a growing boy.” 

"This boy's idea of 'play' involves grand larceny," Gabriel says, reclaiming his wrist to fold his arms, and Jack snorts. 

"Yeah, so he'll appreciate the value of it," he says, gripping the back of Gabriel's elbow instead. Gabriel still wants to kill something a bit, but . . . "And I'm not above taking whatever excuse the kid will give us to talk to him." 

"Mm," Gabriel says. He can't argue with that. He'd do the same damn thing if he thought it'd work, after all. "That's something, yeah. He'll talk to you." 

"Yeah." Jack gives him a humorless smile. "I'm terrified I'll fuck this up."

Gabriel takes the opportunity to pin Jack's arm behind his back in a less than vicious half nelson, mostly because he wants to rest his forehead in the space between his shoulder blades. "Good. Nice to know you didn't go suddenly stupid." 

"No."

He rubs his nose against the back of Jack's sweaty shirt and inhales his mate's scent, lets himself be comforted by the familiarity and security he finds in it, lets himself be a normal O for a second—not a superhero or a commanding officer or a grieving mother. Just a normal O who's scared shitless and is letting his A's scent make it better. It's not a weakness he allows, normally, but then for almost fifteen years his baby's been dead and he didn't really feel like he deserved that. Things are different now. He's different now.

"Jack?"

"Hm?"

"I know this is good."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. It's just . . . hard."

The hand not pressed against his own spine reaches up and back to hold Gabriel's hip. Jack tips his neck back and Gabriel can't resist putting his nose in that long white neck. Jack is putty in his hands, willingly helpless and his. 

Jack turns his head and kisses his cheek and says softly, "Yeah well, SEP goes harder."

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr!](http://suzukiblu.tumblr.com/)
> 
> and 
> 
> [Tumblr!](http://dancinbutterfly.tumblr.com/)


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